they have elysium
by Incendiarist
Summary: Because the children of love hardly ever have it. /Reincarnationfic. PercyxPiper. PiperxDrew. TW: character death, dubcon./


_Written for _HerRoyalCheesyness_ and the Easter Fic Exchange on The Association of Crazy People. __  
_

_prompts: hormones? more like** whore**mones; __and that's when it fell off in my hand__; in a world of believers, I do not belong__; this is the part where I should be saying something witty__; ARGH MY EYES_

_#insert 'stddisclaimer.h'_

* * *

**_they have elysium_**_**  
**_

_by_ Incendiarist

* * *

_I'm different._

* * *

**1.**

The wind is frigid, the rain only a step from sleet. Eliezer takes a deep breath, and he jumps.

His scream is lost to the air as he falls the thirty metres from the pegasus, arms flailing, making frantic arcs, and the splash of his pack as it breaks the water is hardly a second before he hits it, feet first and sinking like a stone.

Ten seconds.

Twenty-five.

Forty.

At seventy-nine, his head breaks the surface, and he takes a much needed breath.

**2.**

This isn't his forte. Son of Hephaestus, about to marry the girl of his dreams.

And then the war comes, and he's diving into oceans to avoid missiles and Kamikaze pilots, what the Hades.

**3.**

"Will you marry me?" he asks, a ring held between his thumb and forefinger.

She smiles, and it's this most beautiful thing, as her brown eyes light up, shining from the beginnings of tears of happiness. Her reply is, of course, "Yes!" and she hugs him as though she's afraid he might disappear into the air itself if she doesn't hold onto him.

She's sort of right.

**4.**

In another world, his name is Perseus Jackson and hers is Piper McLean, and they hardly know each-other and definitely aren't in _love_, but they shouldn't be, either, because it isn't this world, the one where they're eliezerandemma, the one where he's in so many pieces they sent him home in a box, and where she's a widow in all but name.

**5.**

In their world, they're percyandannabeth and piperand–––––––, because she's the daughter of Aphrodite, and the children of love hardly ever have it.

**6.**

They hate each-other, so very, very much. But hate and love are so very, very similar—you can hardly tell the difference in the intensity—and so it's all a fight, outdoing each-other, proving each-other wrong, and it manifests in bruises and screams and curses.

**7.**

But they're smiling when it's over.

**8.**

their first lives are different

mortal

unknowing

a pagan girl and an altar boy

it doesn't burn—

it's a snapping in her neck and she swings a bit

and then she's rushed off to asphodel to wait a while

**9.**

A stone on his grave, a modest little thing, name and dates and "he was loved", and she wants to scream, how is this all that's left of him? Just a box of ashes and a piece of granite and memories, memories that aren't even clear and she can practically feel them slipping away and she'd taken so much for granted and never really _thought_ about it and now he was _gone_.

**10.**

What colour were his eyes again?

**11.**

The light burns his eyes.

Bright.

Too bright.

It's a moment before he realises that it doesn't actually hurt.

And then he remembers.

**12.**

She's kind of a romantic.

And when she walks into the obscenely pink cabin, she's almost wishing for candles and silk bedspreads and chandeliers, but what she gets is a disco ball and blankets like in motels and St. Valentines Day cards pinned to the walls, so many that she can't see the walls themselves.

Is _this_ what love is?

**13.**

They tell crass jokes, tell tales about how they planted seeds of lust in suitably funny couplings, and Drew is starting to wonder if she's really in the right place.

But she fits in soon enough.

**14.**

"I can't think of a suitably witty pick-up line, sorry," says the boy.

"I think I'll live," says the girl.

And they live (not-so-)happily ever after.

**15.**

Charming voice.

Beautiful, three-toned, mesmerising.

Hah. She can do better.

**16.**

"Fuck you."

"I'm straight."

"Since when does that matter?"

In the background: "—and that's when it fell off in my hand."

Laughter.

"Since always."

"You must be new."

"What, because I'd rather sleep with someone I'm actually attracted to?"

"Because you think you have a _chance_."

**17.**

his life is uneventful

not good

but not bad either

**18.**

they only meet in the fields of asphodel

**19.**

they don't even know their own names

**20.**

but it doesn't matter

they moved on

had lives again

and they'll never go to the isles

but at least...


End file.
